ml 

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1 

, TALKIN' 

- POINTS 

1 ^ - 

V 

A MINIATURE 

1 *“  encyclopedia  of  infor- 
mation in  regard  to  Japan. 
Intended  for  pastors,  Cen- 
tenary workers  and  others 
who  have  use  for  a compact 
reference  work  from  which 
may  he  quickly  obtained  sig- 
nificant facts  for  incorporation 
into  missionary  addresses. 


FILE  THIS  WHERE  YOU 
CAN  FIND  IT 


JAPAN 

Talking  Points 

V 

AREA  AND  POPULATION 

Emigration  from  Japan  is  not  a luxury,  but  a 
stern  necessity. 

E 

For,  with  a territory  about  the  size  of  Califor- 
nia, this  island  empire  has  a population  sixteen 
times  as  large,  and  only  seventeen  per  cent  of  its 
land  can  be  used  for  farming. 

ED 

There  are,  consequently,  not  less  than  a mil- 
lion Japanese  living  outside  Japan.  America, 
including  Hawaii,  shelters  about  200,000  of  them. 

B 

Notwithstanding  the  small  percentage  of  arable 
territory  in  Japan,  sixty  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion is  directly  engaged  in  agriculture. 

E 

China  was  already  advanced  in  civilization 
while  Japan  was  hardly  more  than  a collection  of 
savage  tribes  in  660  B.C.,  when  the  first  Mikado 
came  to  the  throne. 

B 

Now  Japan’s  navy  ranks  fifth  in  the  world, 
which  gives  her  foremost  position  in  the  Far 
East  and  enables  her  to  uphold  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine in  Asia. 


2 


TRADE 


Japan’s  foreign  trade  is  six  times  as  layge  as  it 
was  twenty  years  ago. 

Q 

Four  years  have  changed  Japan  from  a debtor 
to  a creditor  nation.  She  has  redeemed  her  for- 
eign loans  and,  up  to  the  present,  lent  her  Allies 
1,300,000,000  yen  or  about  $650,000,000. 

a 

Compulsory  military  training  was  established 
forty-five  years  ago  and  the  system  now  calls  out 
over  200,000  young  men  every  year. 

a 

The  exigencies  of  the  war  have  drawn  Japan 
and  United  States  into  closer  trade  relations  than 
ever  before.  The  United  States  is  Japan’s  best 
customer  and  also  heads  the  list  of  the  nations 
that  sell  to  Japan. 

a 

Japan  is  enjoying  a business  and  industrial 
development  that  will  penetrate  every  market  of 
the  world.  Shall  she  not  carry  Christianity  with 
her  into  every  port? 

The  five  great  industrial  cities  of  Japan  have 
increased  325  per  cent  in  population  in  the  last 
ten  years.  The  rapid  industrial  expansion  has 
brought  great  prosperity  but  also  many  evils  such 
as  twelve  to  fifteen-hour  working  days  for  women 
and  children,  and  over-crowded  and  unsanitary 
conditions  in  the  factories. 

Q 

Fifty-six  per  cent  of  Japan’s  factory  operatives 
are  women.  Their  death  rate  is  nearly  three 


3 


times  the  average  rate  among  Japanese  women. 

0 

The  majority  of  female  workers  are  under 
twenty  years  of  age. 

0 

More  people  die  yearly  of  tuberculosis  in  Japan 
than  were  killed  in  the  Russo-Japanese  war. 

0 0 

Good  form  in  Japan  dictates  that  a marriage 
shall  be  arranged  by  intermediaries  and  that  the 
man  shall  not  know  personally  or  care  for  his 
wife  before  marriage.  She  should  be  a perfect 
stranger  to  him.  This  rigid  etiquette,  however, 
is  being  modified  by  western  influence. 

0 

The  result  of  this  systematic  arrangement  of 
marriages  is  an  alarmingly  high  percentage  of 
divorces. 

0 

EDUCATION 

A national  passion  for  learning  has  developed 
in  forty-seven  years  a system  of  compulsory  edu- 
cation which  maintains  ninety-eight  per  cent  of 
the  children  between  six  and  twelve  in  school. 

0 

Japan  is  the  only  nation  in  Asia  which  now 
has  a public-school  system  prepared  to  educate 
all  her  people.  Thousands  of  students  from 
China,  Korea,  the  Philippines  and  India  come  to 
her  schools  and  colleges,  making  these  islands  a 
strategic  point  for  Christianity. 

0 

The  Japanese  college  is  a new  driving  point 
for  mission  work.  There  is  a growing  agnosticism 


4 


among  students.  Out  of  thirty  thousand  of  col- 
lege grade  in  Tokyo,  nine-tenths  definitely  en- 
rolled themselves  as  without  religion. 

a 

The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  registered  four  thousand 
young  men  in  a year,  men  who  probably  would 
not  be  reached  any  other  way. 


□ a 

RELIGION 

Religion,  in  which  the  Japanese  have  had  per- 
fect freedom  since  1889,  is  to  most  of  them  a 
matter  of  custom  and  ritual,  founded  upon  rever- 
ence for  ancestors.  Nothing  is  more  alive  in 
Japan,  Lafcadio  Hearn  said,  than  the  dead. 

a 

Houses  of  prostitution  are  often  found  near 
famous  shrines,  and  there  are  thousands  of 
licensed  prostitutes  in  all  parts  of  the  Empire. 

a 

Buddhism,  which  has  been  steeped  in  formal- 
ity for  centuries,  sees  that  its  hold  on  the  mind 
of  the  people  shows  signs  of  slipping  and  is  there- 
fore trying  to  circumvent  Christianity  by  adopt- 
ing all  its  practices  that  attract  the  Japanese,  and 
by  imitating  its  successful  methods. 

a 

A Sunday  is  now  observed  by  the  Buddhists; 
Christmas  has  a duplicate  in  Buddha’s  Day  on 
April  8th,  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  has  been  faith- 
fully copied  in  the  Young  Men’s  Buddhist  Asso- 
ciation. 


5 


Of  the  123,000  Protestant  church  members  in 
Japan,  21,000  are  affiliated  with  the  Japan  Meth- 
odist Church. 

Q 

Out  of  the  entire  54,000,000  inhabitants  it  is 
estimated  that  30,000,000  have  never  heard  the 
gospel. 

Q 

While  the  number  of  Sunday  School  scholars 
has  increased  over  three  and  a half  t:mes  in  four- 
teen years  there  is  still  only  one  child  in  fifty 
connected  with  a Sunday  School. 

□ 

Tokyo,  the  fourth  city  in  the  world  in  size  and 
the  educational  center  of  Japan,  has  one  Meth- 
odist missionary  giving  all  his  time  and  four 
missionary  professors  giving  part  time  to  evan- 
gelistic work. 

B 


The  Methodist  Publishing  House  in  Tokyo  will, 
during  the  next  five  years,  publish  sets  of  eleven 
grades  of  Sunday  School  lessons  to  be  used  all 
over  the  empire. 

Japanese  Christians  are  doing  their  part  in  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  work  at  the  front.  Major-General 
N.  Hibiki,  Quartermaster-General  during  the 
Russo-Japanese  war,  has  been  sent  to  France  and 
is  working  under  the  general  supervision  of  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A. 

B 

Christianity  has  recently  won  over  a Buddhist 
priest,  the  eighteenth  in  descent  from  a Buddhist 


6 


monk,  now  canonized.  In  every  generation  of 
his  family  there  has  been  a priest.  The  testi- 
mony of  this  converted  priest  is  very  helpful  to 
the  cause  of  Christianity. 

S 

The  aim  of  our  mission  is  not  to  Americanize 
the  Japanese,  for  their  interpretation  will  prob- 
ably bring  fresh  interest  and  new  appreciation  to 
Christian  forces  in  America.  They,  like  our- 
selves, must  think  of  missionary  enterprise  in 
international  terms. 


7 


Published  by 

*The  Centenary  Commission 
of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
150  Fifth  Avenue 
New  York 
1919 


